THE man who wrote the script for Martin Scorsese’s classic films Taxi Driver and Raging Bull, will be the star guest at a brand new annual festival in Nottingham.

Paul Schrader, who also wrote the screenplays for The Last Temptation Of Christ, City Hall and American Gigolo - which he also directed — will be attending Screenlit at the Broadway Cinema, June 29 to July 5 along with David Morrissey and Jimmy McGovern.

The week-long event is designed to celebrate the art of writing for film and TV.

It will include the screening of new films, including the UK premiere of Anne Fontaine’s Coco Before Chanel and the award-winning Unmade Beds by UK-based Argentinean filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos.

This first year also sees the launch of ScreenLit’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Screenwriting which will be given to Paul Schrader, who will present a Screenwriting Masterclass.

read more…

ComingSoon.net just got off the phone with filmmaker Harold Ramis, always a wonderful and charming interview subject for sure. We talked a little about his new movie Year One, starring Jack Black and Michael Cera, which hits theaters next week, plus he’s also being honored with a Screenwriting Tribute and taking part in an All-Star Comedy panel at this year’s Nantucket Film Festival. (Oh, and we should mention that panel includes Ben Stiller, Peter Farrelly and John Hamburg, too!)

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the planned Ghostbusters 3, as the original movie celebrates its 25th Anniversary and having been twenty years since the last installment. Ramis has been developing the three-quel along with his Year One writers Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg, best known as part of the writing staff on “The Office,” so we asked him for a brief update.

read more…

…that we were not able to get to on the show.

Unanswered Questions from John August on Vimeo.

According to The Guardian he is:

Synecdoche, New York opened in America last October, and it has already appeared at several UK film festivals, so you may judge the hopes for its commercial success that it is only just opening commercially next week. That may prove a generous use of the word “commercially”. Still, you may love the film and be changed by it. Sometimes the wistful voice of a website posting says it all, like this letter addressed to Charlie Kaufman, the man who wrote and directed Synecdoche:

“Charlie i hope you read this and only posted it in the hopes that you would. i live in birmingham, alabama and had to drive to atlanta, georgia to see your movie in theatres. i want to say this is the greatest film experience I have had all year. your film touched me in the deeps depths of my heart in the most wonderful way. i love your films and want you to keep making them and despite all the dumb ass critics I think that synecdoche new york is a masterpiece of cinema that humanity doesn’t deserve.”

To which I would add this: a few critics raved about the picture; several others welcomed it. I’m urging you to see it - if only to discover what the writer of Being John Malkovich and Adaptation can do as a director. Plus the film cost $21m and has so far grossed $3m in its home country. All I want to know is how Charlie Kaufman, with this story and his hangdog shyness raised even $21, let alone millions.

Harold Ramis and Ben Stiller will participate on a comedy panel and Ramis will receive the annual Screenwriters Tribute at the 14th Annual Nantucket Film Festival, set to run from June 18-21.

Peter Farrelly and John Hamburg will also feature on the panel and discuss the evolution of comedy.

Ramis’ upcoming comedy Year One starring Jack Black and Michael Cera will close the festival and there will be a 25th anniversary screening of Ghostbusters, which Ramis starred in and co-wrote.

Festival artistic director Mystelle Brabbee said that without Ramis “the landscape of comedy in movies would look entirely different” and called him “the father of modern comedy.”

In keeping with the festival’s mission of spotlighting writers, organisers will announce the winner of Showtime’s annual Tony Cox Award for screenwriting at the annual awards brunch. Jury members include Fisher Stevens, Jessie Nelson, and Lili Taylor.

The film line-up includes Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, Cheryl Hines’ Serious Moonlight, Cherien Dabis’ Amreeka, Sophie Barthes’ Cold Souls, Louie Psihoyos’ documentary The Cove, Lynn Shelton’s Humpday and Sebastian Silva’s The Maid.

(Source: http://www.screendaily.com/festivals/harold-ramis-to-receive-nantucket-screenwriting-tribute/5000879.article)

Helped bring “Bonanza,” “The Twilight Zone” to life.

According to the Associated Press, John Furia, Jr., the scribe who helped bring Bonanza and The Twilight Zone into America’s living room during the 1950s and 1960s, died Monday. His passing was confirmed by the Writer’s Guild of America West. Cause of death is not known.

Born in 1929, Furia first got his feet wet as a singer performing in dance bands in New York City. But a chance move to Hollywood stoked his interest in the written word, launching his screenwriting career as the brain behind some of the most popular movies and TV shows of the post-war era.

“John had an old-world dignity about him that seems in such short supply in our world today,” Jack Epps, Jr., chair of the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts Writing for Screen and Television Division, said in a statement.

Though Furia’s main portfolio was as a writer, he was a fearless advocate of his fellow scribes, serving as president of the WGAW from 1973 to 1975. In his free time, he helped found USC’s Writing for Screen and Television Division, becoming the division’s first full professor.

In a statement, the current president of the WGAW, Patric M. Verrone, expressed his sorrow following Furia’s death.

“John’s character and dignity touched and influenced generations of writers from the founders of the Guild itself to the newest of student-associates,” he said. “For those of us who relied on his knowledge and his counsel, John was more than an eminence grise; he was pure eminence.”

Furia leaves behind a spouse, Mary, and 7 children.